Will You Stand In This Land Forever?
by h0bbes
Summary: Helen has sealed their fate. Brought her Sanctuary down upon herself and down on them, too.
1. Chapter 1

Everything came down around their shoulders with a crash and a bang. Nikola tastes ash. It's bitter, dry, and for a moment he panics. Killed them all and sealed it with a kiss. That too burns, all the more bitter, as Nikola picks himself up and proceeds (attempts) to brush off. It is clouds and clouds of cement and grit and he succeeds in very little before remembering (_Heinrich_), and scooping up the lump that lay at his feet. Henry is dazed, and there is a dark bump on the side of his head, centered by a deep red that trickles down the side of his face. Nikola grips him by the shoulders, shaking him once. "Henry." He says loudly (they've blown out their ears again,_ oh happy day_) and shakes him again. "Whattthappen'd?"

_Boom. Crash. Wallop. Not a bang but a whimper. Au revoir, Sanctuary! Das Vidanya!_ He wants to say. It's just as bitter as the ash in his mouth. Nikola thinks it better to spit instead.

Henry's smart. He'll figure it out on his own. Helen has sealed their fate. Brought her Sanctuary down upon herself and down on them, too.

"Oh man..." Nikola rolls his eyes. "Oh, _shit_."

Ding ding ding. Henry runs his hands through his hair, coming out looking like dishevelled porcupine, talking a mile a minute. Somewhere behind them, there is a crash. Something settling. The final resting place for the ruins. Somewhere he hoped SCIU was playing the fiddle.

"We need to get out of here." Henry finally begins to make sense again and Nikola presses his lips together grimly and nods. "Magnus...the Doc- She-" he chokes up.

"She's dead." Nikola's nonchalance surprises himself. It just makes Henry angry.

"Saving you, you asshole."

"And you. And Junior. And your whole big happy family. Hardly for me." _No, never for Nikola, the one with the funny accent who stands at the back of the room. _He's going to have to have the level head, apparently. Children are never good in a crisis. "I was just here."

"What did she say to you?"

"Go."

"That's it?"

"No, then she read me a poem, we sat down, and had a nice heart to heart before she sent me on my way—_yes_. That's it. That's the last thing she said to me." And locked herself in. Down with the ship. Helen was too poetic for her time. It was disgustingly cliche. Somewhere beyond there is a groan of foundation, a scrape of charred metal and concrete and wood. They should go soon. Lest they be crushed under it all, just like dear Helen. Henry's anger subsides, a short outburst followed by a vacuum of silence, a near catatonic state as his own realization settles. Nikola hates to repeat, even to himself, but he spares this, his agony.

Helen Magnus is dead.

All angsting and poetic waxing aside, they didn't really have the luxury of mourning. Continual debris shift from what had once been the inside of the Sanctuary case and point. Nikola grabs solidly the cleanest part of the wolf boy, the collar of his shirt, and tugs a little (like a leash almost, which would be humorous in any situation. It's just soul shattering to watch him shuffle his feet dutifully in the direction indicated). "Get a move on, Bambi." Nikola pushes him a little firmly and Henry nearly trips before shuffling. He much preferred him angry, he thinks. At least then he'd have someone to talk to when they had to disappear from society for (another) half a century.

The further they walk to the end of the hallway, the louder the crashes get, and Nikola thinks that's mighty strange so he stops, yanking again on Henry's shirt to take a look around. It's not as loud as debris advancing debris implosion is supposed to sound (and he's got enough field experience to know), but like something is pushing through with little care as to where they're displacing materials, a little pile driver through ash and smoke and rock. Nikola wonders when he'd swallowed the rock churning now in the pit of his stomach. There would not be enough curses on the whole great earth for him to invoke if (after _all of this_) that tunnel-crawling, thrice-faced, murderous bastard was able to crawl through debris like a maggot through flesh. Nikola's going to greatly regret approaching then. Afterwards his only regret will be he didn't have more time to make the man suffer more.

But there's another big shift, and through what was once upon a time the exit unto the Old City catacombs comes a second wave of dust and rubble, which shoots into his face and coats him (again) with dirt. Nikola recovers from the attack red-eyed, shifting his jaw back and forth to ease the tension of expansion from shiny teeth.

Then it is Helen Magnus emerging like a fallen angel, half pulling, half swearing her way through the small available hole.

"Hi." is the first gloriously uncultured thing out of her mouth. "Some help would be nice." and she smiles at him, and coughs, and gives a little half sob as she leans over against (what he's going to guess is) a cracked rib.

"Doc!"

Henry is running a marathon it sounds, the 50 yard sprint as he rushes to Nikola's side, wrapping his arm around her shoulders to pull. "No-" she manages before Henry is launched backwards like the rest of the debris and Helen's back gives a resounding spark and pop and the whirring that Nikola hadn't even been paying attention to until just then stops.

"It works." Nikola mutters bemusedly as he digs his fingers between Helen's hip and the hole.

"Remarkably." Helen sounds weary, but pleased. "Well done, Henry." is a laugh turned into a pained gasp for air.

"Thank you." says a dazed Henry who picks himself up from the ground again.

"Ready?" Nikola asks and Helen nods. "On three."

Three is actually one and Helen comes out with a firm tug, piling into Nikola's arms while her boots hit the floor with a resounding thump. Nikola didn't think that ghosts made so much noise, and he stares hard at Helen as to figure out the reason why. Her smudged brow wrinkles but softens moment by moment, as if it's too hard to hold one face. "What? Didn't think I'd really be gone, did you?"

"You blew up your house." he points out.

"Yes."

"So much for going down with your ship."

"I have never been good at bowing out gracefully."

It makes Nikola smile. Helen manages a grimace before she takes a step, another step, a knee, and sits down on the rubble-laden ground amongst a cloud. "I don't think I can go on any further." she admits after a moment. She can't quite meet Nikola's eyes, staring past his shoulder to look at the concussion-shattered overhead lighting. "It's a good thing there are three of us, then." Nikola says before lifting her easily, wrapping arms around her shoulders, hesitating a moment before he grunts and picks up her knees as well. "You're quite heavy."

He's rewarded with the weakest slap from her he's ever received and a tinkling laugh before she drifts into an exhausted unconsciousness, Henry guiding the way forward as they wind through the catacombs to find an entrance into the scratched and burned postbellum surface.


	2. Chapter 2

He thinks he's seen this before. Helen Magnus without her battle armor is like something of a myth. Impossible until one sets their eyes upon it, sublime in delicate existence. He wouldn't go so far to say that she looks ethereal (actually right now she looks more like a chimney sweep than just about anything else) and disoriented, with an almost happy smile she can't shake warms his insides in a way that he'd forgotten. "Where are we?" she mumbles, reaching out for his hand. Her palms are warm and clammy, an idea that repulses him on a good day; considering they're both covered in enough grime to set his teeth on edge he ignore it because Helen is alive and smiling, the least he could do is be a little courteous (even if she did just try and bring her house down on his head).

"That's a question better left to young Henry."

"And where is he?" She looks past his shoulder, around the crates, wrinkling her brow, and giving up with a huff to stare upwards at the ceiling. She does not let go however, and Nikola swipes his thumb across the back of her hand, tracing along fine scratches. He can feel her pulse, the slow thrum as she sets through a motion of meditative breathing: inhale, exhale, heal, repeat. "He's outside. Someone made a huge mess. Nosy neighbors, all of that." It sounded less rude in his head. Helen only sighs. "I am not one from backing down from a challenge." As soon as that smile is gone, he wants for it, anything than the neutral line her lips have become. "Necessary sacrifices had to be made."

She blew up her life's work, her home, and lord knows what else in that last act and Nikola wants to ask her why, why she of all people could be so destructive but he's got no ledge to stand on. No moral high ground. Equals once more. There is no more of The Great Helen Magnus, only Helen whose concussed and laying on a makeshift pallet while the world around them burns deep into the night. And for a moment Nikola thinks he feels fear for the unknown for a minute. Shaken. He doesn't like it.

"Nikola," He snaps attention back to her, a pair of questioning eyes look at him. "would you fetch Henry, please? I have things to discuss."

Young Heinrich has things of his own he'd like to discuss with her. Nikola finds him pacing back and forth, muttering (no, growling. All joking aside, growling is definitely the best word in this situation) and looks half murderous when Nikola clears his throat. "The patron saint of things that go Boom would like to see you, now." Henry is a storm of emotional confusion and brushes by Nikola. He shuts the door behind him. Shelter is a back door abandoned warehouse, hidden from plain view, with a little metal sheet propped up on wooden stilts in the name of makeshift cover. The night was buzzing, a dull hum from the flickering streetlight at the end of the alleyway. There are people standing under it, undesirables, and Nikola wonders...He stares at the light and can feel himself humming lowly, too.

The streetlight surges and shatters, scattering people like bugs. He is left with moonlight and the wilderness of their leviathan jungle.

"Tesla." Henry's voice is quiet and he doesn't step out of the shadow of the doorway. "We need to go." Far off, Nikola can hear the wail of sirens, the night is full of them tonight. The Fifth Ward is burning.

"Go where?" He is out of moves to play, now. This tin can is just as good as anywhere else now. "The underground." Helen is having to hunch so Henry can hold her up properly and it shows on her face how uncomfortable it is. She does not say a word as he pulls her away from Wolfboy, throwing one arm around his neck and resting his palm warmly against her hip. "The sewers."

"Helen, I am in no mood to-"

"I've hidden something down there." He thinks he catches her eyes spark in the moonlight. "We still have work to do, gentlemen."

Henry's smile is genuine, honest, and hopeful. Nikola turns one corner of his lip up in disgust. "Which manhole did you have in mind?"


	3. Chapter 3

He's sure there is something living swimming around in his shoe. It makes an ugly squelching noise every time he steps down amongst the slosh and the leachate and the rubbish. If this is Helen's contingency plan, he hopes a shower is involved. A long, hot shower where he can peel off layers of skin and forget what the feeling of half-dry mud feels like coated onto his thigh. Helen guides them without a map, brow wrinkled in deep concentration, and she looks as if she's trying to read the network of pipelines that follow them. They pass under a grating above and Nikola sees dawn break. "So this is what it's like to be a rat."

"A bit further." she says to combat his notion. Helen's tired, too. They're all tired. And wet, and disgusting. Nikola is silently hoping that this is all very, very worth it in the end. He's almost positive he might never forgive her if it isn't.

There shouldn't be doors in the sewers, he thinks. Not conventional ones anyway. But Helen points to a corner and suddenly they're up and out of the water, walking along brand new metal grating, and there are lights. Lights that lead right to a solid cement door. Helen tries to wriggle out of his grasp. "I'm alright now. Let me go." He does, and she walks forward with all the grace of a colt. They both wince at the rattle of her knees hitting the floor. She's scanned, something Nikola thinks also shouldn't be happening in a sewer, and Henry sounds like a fish rudely surprised by the sudden realization of air.

One shaking hand reaches back for his own and he dutifully pulls her up again and tries not to stare at the swinging hulk of a door sliding noiselessly open. "Well," says Nikola, "It certainly doesn't look like a wardrobe."

"Hm, funny."

"Yes, and slowly rolling downhill from there."

"What is it?" _Finally _, the boy finds words. And Helen, she smiles. Nikola is staring hard at her, through the darkness where she thinks that no one can see.

"Oh, Henry." It comes out as a contented sigh ; pressure against his collar suggests a shift in her weight to brush up against the younger man casually, resting. He doesn't expect the laugh, so perfectly contented, girlish and relaxed (completely foreign and half way to terrifying coming from her) and then it's "where would a girl be without her secrets?"

Henry isn't in the mood for secrets and quasi-madness, and really Nikola isn't either. "Helen-"

"It's been a long time coming, Nikola. Let me have my moment."

"A moment? Fine. No one here but us water rats."

"_Very well then_, see for yourself." It doesn't sound as inviting as one could have hoped.

"Fur before Finesse." Nikola waves Henry forward, giving the doorway a skeptical once over. The boy is so into his surroundings he doesn't even bother. "Cool!" is a resounding echo that draws a softer echoing chuckle from Helen as they disappear out of sight.

Nikola isn't so impressed with the walls of rock. "I don't know...I was never into the Batcave chic."

"Oh do come _on_ , Nikola!"

Grumbling, his hands find their way into the recesses of his pockets. The slab slides back over them as he steps in. The corridor, or what is supposed to be a corridor he assumes, is all angles. Natural for rock, but Nikola has long since learned to forgo any association with what was natural to Helen Magnus. Trailing around the slow loop downwards (which got noticeably brighter and brighter, 'Helen what are you doing down here?), He meets abruptly with Henry's back.

Poor boy's been struck speechless, and reasonably...when faced with Utopia. Daylight, or so it seems, filters down and reflects along the water. Arched metal curves above their heads, a soft descent to the building (buildings, well well) and Nikola sucks in a breath.

"My my, Helen. _Someone's_ been busy."

Helen, to her credit, looks far too pleased with herself.


End file.
